


Florid Notations

by lion__heart



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Canon Relationships, F/F, Flowers, Language of Flowers, Love, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:19:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lion__heart/pseuds/lion__heart
Summary: "She had seen hints, snatches, before, as if viewing a magnificent Greek statuette in pieces of broken marble, separately -and it could only take a detective to piece them all together."A story of Therese Belivet's journey out of perpetual gloom - and the mysterious notes she keeps on receiving.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first story, and I'm rather excited, so I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!  
> The setting is not quite modern, but not as far back as the 1950s, either. Enjoy!

_Chapter One_

The sheets were tangled around her, sticky with sweat as she awoke. Therese stumbled blindly out of bed, bleary-eyed, shoving away the clutter of books on her nightstand to reveal the gleaming face of the clock, which read ‘6:38’.

She groaned. The clock was in stark contrast to the rest of her room, with its jumbled heaps of clothes on the floor, those tangled sheets that covered her body just previously. The bed was unmade, and it would remain unmade, she knew – when would it ever be neat tidy like the clock? The clock was untouched, free of grime and mess – a separate entity from everything in this room.

_Another wasted day._ Therese had been trying to fight it all, to fight back the tears that threatened to spill over every morning and evening, day and night, and then, sometimes – a feeling of nothingness would wash over her and she would be strangely calm – and strangely frightening.

But then, the hopelessness would triumph, would engulf her, twisting around her body, choking her mind, and she would tell herself to be motivated, to do more – but what was there left to do? How could she feel the way she used to before?

So then, the only action left to do was sleep, and dream, and wake up at 6:38 PM, tired, with a throbbing head and a foggy mind.

This particular Saturday evening was of no consequence, Therese knew, but when Monday arrived, she would have to work – if living was the only option, work would incessantly follow. She sighed, grasping her water bottle and glancing out the window – so much to do that she had not done, and yet – nothing to do at all.

A sudden light at the window of the house across the street startled her from her drink – Therese laughed at her nerves. It was getting late, she supposed; no doubt the woman would turn on her lights. The other houses would soon follow, and then, Therese herself, if she were to do anything productive for the rest of the evening. Dinner, perhaps?

Therese stared out her window again. The light in the other house was presumably lit at the kitchen – Therese could see a marble countertop through the glass, atop which were several sliver pots and pans. A glimpse of a chair and one leg of a table could be seen at the window’s rightmost side.

Then came the figure – Therese’s breath caught at the sight of her dim shadow, then silently berated herself for her childish reaction to a being who remained cast in shadows; Therese could not even clearly make out her face.

But she had seen hints, snatches, before, as if viewing a magnificent Greek statuette in pieces of broken marble, separately, in hidden locations – and it could only take the shrewdness of a detective, or perhaps, the knowledge of a scholar, to piece them all together.

The woman did not leave her house much, Therese knew – but once, as Therese was walking home, she saw a tall figure in front of her. Therese was much too far across the street to unveil the figure, but, as it walked up the steps to the grand old house, and the jangle of keys could be heard, a streak of pale moonlight fell across the pavement, and Therese saw, in an instant – pale golden hair, curled, the curve of a tailored grey suit – then the moonlight was gone, the door shut behind the woman, and darkness draped over the house once more.

Therese could hardly sleep that night. She dreamed of golden hair in the light curling against her body, she saw a prim, white smile and felt a hand on her arm, and she woke with her heart pounding. Her arm tingled for the rest of the day.

Then, there was another time – the time of the neighborhood picnic. Therese had braved to go, found herself by the pickles, which she promptly spread onto her hamburger; then she felt a brush to her arm, saw a slim, freckled hand with red nails move towards the pickles, turned, and glimpsed calm grey eyes, flickering with fire, full red lips – then Dannie tugged at her from the other side, bringing her reluctantly into another insignificant conversation of something or the other – and when she turned her head back, the woman was gone. Therese did not see her for the rest of the picnic.

In any case, Therese thought bitterly, setting her water bottle back down – what did it matter? It was just her luck to be infatuated with some mysterious woman who was probably nothing like her – blond where she was brown-haired, tall where she was short, finely dressed while Therese still wore paint-splattered skirts.

Even her house was so dissimilar, propped in the middle of the neighborhood as if some giant child’s hand playing with building blocks had taken one look at the tiny, weathered houses in there and decided that something pretty must brighten it up. The house was grand, magnificent; it took up the space of two and a half houses the size of Therese’s; it was two stories, furnished with mahogany bricks – it didn’t belong here, Therese felt, with her grubby one-story slip of a house she rented with from Dannie’s friend, its paint flaking off at the edges.

No, Therese decided, the woman was a dream, and she could not afford to dwell on dreams, to wallow in them, to take comfort in them – where had dreaming got her till now? The hot tears stung her cheeks; she knew must halt dreaming before she failed again – or else, how would she scrape together the money for her studies next year? No, she had to work, she had to _do something_ – but she simply sat still, feeling the tears drip down her face and onto her arms. Therese pretended they were rain.

What was the point of dinner in this mood? Therese began to get ready for bed, though it was only 7:30. Halfway through brushing her teeth, she heard the doorbell ring. Hurriedly shoving the brush into the inner corners of her mouth, she spit into the sink, walked to the front door, and opened it.

There was nobody there, no presence except for the sultry summer breeze. The doorbell’s shrill ring might have seemed yet another figment of her imagination, another wretched dream – save for the basket on her doorstep. Therese picked it up.

The basket was square, with bronze straws weaving intricately into each other, a seamless blend, a brownish ocean. Inside was a single head of purple hydrangea.

Therese fingered the soft petals, glancing back down at the basket. She caught sight of a small piece of paper at the bottom, white with gold corners, with small, slanted cursive letters printed on it.

_To Miss Therese Belivet. May your days be as colorful as the flowers._

The lights were off at the grand old house. Her heart trembling, Therese went back inside.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the lovely comments! I felt so giddy inside, reading them, and they made me feel very inspired. Here's the next chapter. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, and I hope you like it.

_Chapter Two_

The market was bustling this morning – old women in straw hats stooped over their canes, their fleshy hands counting out coins, young mothers with flat-ironed hair grasped their shopping baskets in one hand and their children in another, teenagers jauntily strolled past in brightly colored blouses and cuffed trousers. One of them made a pass at the nearby florist’s stand, pretending to yank a rose – then snatching his hand back. Shrill peals of laughter erupted as he joined his friends, nearly drowning out the florist’s sharp rebuke – but Therese did not miss it. A sudden boldness overtaking her, she went over to his stand.

“Hello. I’m afraid I’m not here to steal.”

The elderly man looked up at her. The sun had reddened his face, despite the wide-brimmed hat he wore as an attempt at a shield, and drops of perspiration rolled off his brow. His blue eyes were tired but kind, and he regarded her steadily.

“That’s a relief,” he smiled. His voice was wispy, like this thin, fraying, whitened hair.

Therese looked down at the flowers. The spread was a multicolored carpet: scarlet roses, darkened violets, pale lilies – and, Therese noticed with a sudden jolt, a spread of hydrangeas. She thought of the purple hydrangea in her house at the moment, housed in a vase, doused in water, like a rare secret blossoming through her. The petals, she felt, were made from fire, and they spread through her like sparks, igniting every inch of her body.

“How much – how much do they cost?” she inquired faintly, gesturing to the flowers. She tried but could not form the true question with her lips, the real reason she had stopped at his stand, and she felt her shyness overtake her, restraining her from expressing her burgeoning curiosity.

“Why –” the edge of his mouth turned up, “– are you looking to buy these for someone?”

Therese hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said, not wanting to shatter his hopes of a potential buyer.

But the man had a knowing look in his eye, a look that made Therese shrink uncomfortably. It made her feel seen, and she did not want to be seen, did not want her innermost thoughts penetrated by a stranger – particularly a stranger who was looking to part her with her money.

“It’s what I tell people,” the man began, “If you don’t know, you’d better do it anyway.”

“Why?” Therese asked.

“It’s the way all emotions, all humans are,” and here his voice began to rise rapidly, excitedly, as if reaching a crescendo, “a mystery. We never know how they’ll react; we always think twice – but when you admire someone, or love them, or feel – something for them, you initiate, before you regret. Or give back to the world at least, in a positive manner – flowers are certainly positive.” He chuckled to himself, and Therese, slightly dazed by his statement, was unsure how to react. What a strange, oddly vague outburst. Therese could not be sure whether he was a wise, paternal figure or simply a shrewd businessman. Perhaps a bit of both.

She thought of the note at home, lying immobile on her nightstand. The ink had etched itself into her memory – ‘ _May your day be as colorful as the flowers.’_

How could days be colorful, anyway? Were all days ordained to be black-and-white, lifeless and dull, until something – a feeling, perhaps, or an object, or a person – added color to them? Had her days indeed been black-and-white, bland, up till this point? There was color now, or at least the faint stirrings of it, Therese realized, not solely in the vibrant shades of the slacks and dresses and hats around her but in her thoughts as well…

Therese did not realize she had wandered away from the florist’s stand until she spotted him far away, engaged with another customer – some blond woman in a dress whose face was mostly obscured by the teenagers loitering around the stall, perhaps thinking of a creative way to begin their antics again.

She could not pretend the note had not buoyed her. For a fleeting minute, she had suspected Richard of its penmanship, but she had told him off months ago, and anyway, Richard didn’t write in cursive, nor did he write florid well-wishes. Dannie would not do such a thing, either – he was more pragmatic and less poetic.

That left no one, or no one that Therese knew. She yearned to uncover the mystery, yet she was afraid of its beauty being ruined alongside its anonymity.

The routine motions of buying milk, apples, bread, seemed mechanical now, or impersonal. Therese went through all the necessary actions without paying much attention – a pound of apples, said the woman at the stand, weighing them, yes, I’ll get these for you, oh, and a gallon of milk as well? Therese said thank you and walked home, away from the clutter and bustle, away from the color.

But then she came across the house, once again, and the color was real. The harsh sunlight illuminated the bricks – so it was not quite so perfect, after all, Therese noticed: there were the slightest scuffed, weathered marks that defiled the mahogany, but it only served to make the house more worldly. Therese’s eyes flickered, instinctively, to the window at the top left (that _was_ the woman’s bedroom, after all, wasn’t it, or perhaps she just liked that room the most) searching for any hint of a figure, her heart throbbing – but there was none, and she had to force herself away from the dream, force herself back to reality.

Back home, Therese began a sketch. The scratch of pencil on paper, the concentration it required, were not unfamiliar, but they took some time getting accustomed to, as though Therese’s hands had forgotten the motions and had to be reminded of it. She glanced at the hydrangea, still in its vase on her desk, and her pencil began to paint its image, to depict the curves of the petals. She worked furiously, heady with elation, and the flower was borne in front of her, the tall, thin, stem –

She frowned. The petals were soft and fluffy, miniscule and bunched together, and she had not drawn them as circular, but they seemed to flow into each other, creating curls that shaped the head of the flower. And suddenly she was thinking no longer of the flower, was drawing the flower no longer, but was adding waves of hair to the image in front of her. The petals did not look like themselves – they were not purple but golden, and she began to draw eyes of grey underneath the strands, trying to depict their stillness and fire with a mere few strokes of her pencil. Now came the nose – she had to guess slightly, as she had no intimate knowledge of it, then the lips, which she was more confident about. She shaded them in with red. The thin stem was no longer a stem, but it formed the base of the body, then the limbs branched out from it, and Therese had to guess the proportions again, as she had only seen the woman from afar.

The pencil stopped. Therese sat back. The flower that she had intended to draw seemed wilted in its vase, perhaps deflated at the lack of attention Therese had given it. And the paper – the paper showed no flower, but a tall woman with short, blond hair that seemed to hold half the space of the page, with striking grey eyes that bored into Therese, a chin with a calm, unaffected tilt, and red lips that formed a half-smile. She had drawn the woman, she knew, and perhaps she was betraying the sender of the flower by prioritizing a stranger over them, but Therese could not help it. She did not understand why the petals had reminded her of hair, why she had drawn the woman in place of the flower. What did she have to do with any of it?

_They should have given it to the woman,_ Therese thought of whoever had sent the note. There was no true color in her life except in the woman’s house and her drawing. The flower had given her something, some urge to get out of bed, to draw, but the woman had used up all of it – and now there was nothing left. The woman, perhaps, had color in her life, and Therese felt that it was leeching all of the color out of hers, sucking it into her, serving only to make the woman more vibrant. What use was the well-wish if it was only taken up by someone other than her?

The doorbell rang. Therese, struck with an absurd sense of déjà vu, fought the desire to laugh. She went down the hallway to the door and opened it, her anticipation growing irrationally. But alas, it was nothing – only a stack of letters, one from the bank, one from the library. Her heart deflated. Of course mysterious strangers would not repeatedly ply her with gifts, of course there would not –

But then a flash of yellow, bright and sunny against the dark shadows cast by the overhanging roof, caught her eye. Near the edge of the porch stoop, where her roof hung just a little over the stoop enough to shadow it, lay a small flowerpot not unlike the ones Therese had glimpsed at the florist’s stand earlier. The daffodils, so miniscule, were the only splash of color indistinguishable from the darkness – even the pot was dark brown. Therese hurried over to it, her breath catching in her throat, and picked it up. What _were_ the odds? To receive one of these – _again?_ She had deemed her slight fancy impossible, yet here these daffodils were, so lively and real. Therese marveled at them for some time before scouring the little pot for – where was it – ah, _there it was._

She held the note out of the shadows. The same slanted, cursive handwriting from before was etched upon it, but this time:

_To Miss Belivet, the rare delight that brings about the birth of joy._

Therese stared at the words. What did they mean? She read them over and over, slowly forming each word with her lips, hanging on to every letter so as not to miss any hidden meaning. Was she “the rare delight”? Were the flowers? It was ironic, anyway, if she were to be the delight, as these notes delighted her so, or at least, they made her forget about sadness for a moment. Therese looked around, hoping in vain that the sender would be around somewhere, would have left some careless hint as to his whereabouts.

Or her whereabouts. The handwriting that Therese found so beautiful looked more like the handwriting of a woman, or at least one would assume it to be, based on the feminine loops that curled around the words. Therese had once known a boy in one of her middle school English classes that was remarkably adept at cursive – but he had been an anomaly, and Therese, for some indefinable reason, preferred to think of the sender as a woman, anyway.

“Hello?” Therese called, looking around, taking a few steps off the stoop. There was no answer but the wind rustling through the trees, and she supposed that she hadn’t truly expected there to be one. “Thank – you,” Therese said uncertainly, wondering whether anyone was even around to listen, or if a stranger who happened to overhear would think her unhinged, talking to no apparent person. She rushed back inside.

So this was a recurring event, Therese mused as she placed the pot of daffodils on her desk beside the hydrangea. Somebody was noticing her, and they knew her address. A co-worker? A neighbor? Therese felt strangely shaky, her mind drifting back to the woman in the grand old house. She was the neighbor right across, and Therese only had one other close neighbor to her left, as her house was situated at the end of her street. To her left was a sweet, old couple who often made it to neighborhood picnics. She’d met them a few times before, introduced herself – but there was no real connection, nothing between them that suggested they would write notes to her or send flowers.

And the woman – Therese’s heart raced – the woman, unfortunately, had even less of a connection to her. Therese had never even seen her face properly, and she doubted that the woman even knew her name. Instinctively, she glanced at the house out of her window, and saw the familiar figure in the bottom left window, directly facing her. Therese moved closer to her window, her breath quickening. This time, the woman was standing closer to her own window, and Therese could see her profile. Therese greedily drank it in: the faraway, preoccupied look in the one grey eye she could see, the silvery pearl in her ear, the downward slant of her lips, moving as she talked on the phone. She didn’t look very happy, Therese realized, or else the conversation she was having was not very pleasant. Where had all the color that Therese had imagined gone?

Something that the florist had said earlier tugged at her mind – _give back positively_ , or something of that sort. Therese wondered if the woman would be –

_Wait a minute_. Another thought had crossed her mind, overtaking the first: the florist!

Therese went over to the pot of daffodils again, scrutinized it closely, then grabbed her bag and raced out of her house.

She arrived out of breath, panting, at the market. The florist was just packing up his stall, setting his various flowerpots onto a cart, and Therese breathed a sigh of relief, glad that she hadn’t missed him. She went over to him, and he looked up at her, surprise crossing his pale, fragile features.

“Oh,” he said, almost chuckling, “It’s you again, the funny girl.”

Therese had no time to object to being called funny. The question was pressing on her mind, begging to be released, and the arrival of the daffodils today had swept the nervousness from her mind.

“Hello – I need to ask you something.”

“Again?” The old man smiled.

“I was wondering whether – did anyone buy any daffodils today, from your stall? Yellow daffodils,” she quickly clarified, still short of breath.

The florist raised an eyebrow. “Many people buy flowers from my stall. I don’t remember them all.”

“You remembered me, and I didn’t buy anything.”

“Very funny,” he replied, “but I cannot disclose my customers’ private information.”

“I’m not asking you for private information,” Therese replied desperately, “I only want to know whether someone bought yellow daffodils today!”

The man looked at her amusedly. Perhaps it was not so important to him, Therese thought, but he did not understand what it was like to receive something that was starting to pull her out of her mire, without even knowing – anything.

“In that case,” he said, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Somebody bought daffodils.”

“And that’s all you’re going to tell me?” Therese asked him, hoping that he might share something more, despite his previous statement.

“That is, indeed, all I’m going to tell you,” the florist responded. “But why not buy something from my stall, since you’re already here – again?”

Therese hesitated, and from the glint in his eye, she could tell the florist noticed her hesitation. “My name is Mr. Robinson – Randall Robinson, by the way,” he offered. “You seem to have a fascination with this stall, so why not pick something out? I do need to pay my rent, after all, and I’ll give you a discount, since you look so troubled.”

And all of a sudden the florist no longer seemed a menacing, calculated businessman looking to purloin her money, but almost a friend – a grandfather. Therese smiled and told him her name in return, then picked up a slim, red carnation, paid hardly anything for it, and departed.

On her way home, clutching the carnation, she shook her head, wondering why she always said yes to everything, and what she was to do with yet another flower. At least she had found out, or probably found out, that the sender had purchased the daffodils from the florist, and most likely the hydrangea, too. So they were near her, and they frequented the same market. Suppose she went to the market again tomorrow morning and –

But then Therese realized that tomorrow was Monday, and Monday meant work. She couldn’t go tomorrow, after all. Therese checked her watch, wondering how the time had flown by so swiftly today, and wondering whether time would fly by swiftly tomorrow as well, or remain the same, slogging course of monotonous events.

Therese glanced at the carnation again. She was entering her street, near the woman’s house, and an idea crept into her mind, forming half-imagined scenarios, penetrating her thoughts. Therese tried to suppress it, then gave up and let it grow. She might as well, she figured, because she did have _some_ time left before nightfall to think it over.

Her watch, after all, had read 6:39 PM.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? Mr. Robinson is rather interesting...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and thank you for your kind reviews! Here's another chapter: enjoy.
> 
> I've set this story in a suburb of New Jersey, in South Orange, near Newark. I wanted this story to still have the northeastern setting of the book and movie, but I didn't feel that New York was appropriate for this specific setting, especially since they're in a grassy-ish suburb. 
> 
> I've done some research and the South Orange and Newark border apparently is home to some socioeconomic disparity, where you can see an upper class sort of area next to a low income area. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

The scene shop was buzzing; electric saws whirred, paintbrushes made faint _slip-slap_ noises on canvas, and hammers tapped against wood. Therese looked around in distaste. The overhead lights were too bright, too artificial, the exact kind of lighting she hated. It made her feel as though she were in a factory; though, she thought with a slight twinge of bitterness, she _was_ practically in one. It did not matter in the slightest that it was a factory that manufactured theatre props instead of a factory that manufactured clothing or gadgets – but at least here, in Orange Scenic Studios, there was no conveyor belt.

To have to begin here – painting and sawing, rather than designing, was immensely frustrating. Therese glimpsed the brown mustache of the set designer at the end of the shop near the paints. He was talking to Mr. Vabroski, and Therese could see in his brow a slight furrow, as if he were stressed. She felt almost savagely triumphant for a moment, then hot, burning shame trickled through her. She would have her time as a designer, too, she reassured herself. What would it matter that she had to start as a worthless scene shop assistant? Perhaps the designer had started here, too – perhaps he worked his way up the ranks.

Mr. Vabroski saw her staring, caught her eye, and waved her over. Therese hesitated, but he did not relent, so she made her way over to him, narrowly avoiding trampling on Tessie, who was hunched over a canvas roll painting a dark, velvety sky.

“We are looking at paint samples,” Mr. Vabroski said to her in his unusually high-pitched voice. He was a short, broad-shouldered man of about forty with graying hair and dark stubble on his chin. His watery eyes regarded her unsteadily, and she could see in them a slight panic, the kind of panic that she knew she would have to mollify with reassurances. “But, you see,” he continued on, “We cannot determine which shade number we should use for the bricks.” He thrust two pieces of painted cardboard into her hands.

Therese looked over both shades of red. One was dark maroon, washed-out; it was an ordinary, basic barn-red. The other held her gaze; she sucked her breath in. It was a brilliant pinkish-red, the same color as the carnation she now kept in her room. It was rare, special, unusual; it was not the conventional color used for most buildings. It would make the temple stand out, since it was such a focal point in the play – it must be noticed; must capture the attention of hundreds of eyes.

“This one,” Therese said, pointing to the carnation red. The set designer looked over and seemed to approve of it, for he left them to flag down Stephen, who had apparently been sawing a board at the wrong angle.

Therese wandered back over to Tessie, informing her of the newly chosen color of the temple. She felt an absurd, impulsive urge to race out of the building, to distance herself from everyone and everything in it. Nothing mattered now but the carnation, and nothing mattered but her decision on what to do with it. Her palms began to sweat, prompted by the mere thought of the act, and she knew that she had been a coward yesterday, turning away from the grand house, when all she really wanted to do was run to it. She closed her eyes, imagining ringing the doorbell. What if she simply stood there and waited for the door to open? And what would the woman say –? Therese could see it now: the slight lift of the woman’s pale brows, the curious yet impersonal look in her grey eyes, and Therese’s mouth feeling like cotton, having nothing to say, no excuse –

No, Therese knew. That would not do.

“Miss Belivet!”

The sharp voice of Mr. Vabroski yanked her out of her reverie, and she hastened to join Stephen at the table saw. His hands were shaking too much, she noticed, to operate the machine correctly, and Therese sighed as she took the plank of wood from him. The carnation would have to wait until later.

In the early evening, she rode back home. She had made up her mind, and she had better act now, she felt, before she lost her nerve. After all, the mysterious stranger sending her the letters had not lost their nerve – and it had done Therese good.

Of course, Therese mused, entering her house, it probably would not do the woman any good. She must have had her fair share of letters and gifts from strangers thrust upon her in hopes of earning her goodwill. Therese could not imagine who wouldn’t be enamored with the woman, nor did she understand why she was the one receiving flowers when there was such an alluring alternative down the street.

The carnation had not wilted yet; it looked rather fresh, and Therese took this as a good sign. That was the easy part, but when she sat down to write the note, no wording could appease her. Her words seemed tight and stifled, the sentences choppy and philistine. What words would do, anyway, what words were sufficient enough to describe – her! Therese could have written a hundred; she could have written one, yet neither of those would do her justice.

Therese looked at the previous two notes she had gotten and compared. Both were rather vague, she supposed, yet undeniably romantic. She thought it best to copy their approach – her first attempt at writing a note had morphed into a starstruck love poem about the woman’s hair, her eyes, her pearl earrings – and that was too obvious, too silly and embarrassing.

She picked up her pen and wrote,

_To –_

The pen stopped. To _whom?_ She had no idea. The woman’s name was a mystery to her, just like the sender of her flowers and the thousands of other mysteries that she had tugging at her. She would simply have to address the woman directly.

With the absence of a basket or flowerpot, Therese felt rather foolish, but she taped the finished note to the carnation’s stem anyway. It was not perfect, but it was better anyhow than her previous attempts. _Your eyes contain the depths of the ocean, and I cannot help but drown._ She had promptly torn that one up. _You are the guide that leads me through the twisting brambles of the forest…_ That had been no good, either.

Instead, Therese settled for a demure, _Greetings from a friend. I hope you enjoy this flower._

She carefully picked up the flower and impulsively glanced at the windows of the woman’s house, making sure no figure was present to see her walking up to the doorstep. Therese could not see the woman in any window, so she left her house, her heart hammering, and tentatively made her way over to the woman’s house.

The lawn was not immaculately kept, she noticed. Bunches of different plants grew here and there, wrapping themselves around the lawn as though they owned it, and the grass, although not immensely untidy, was not trimmed short either. She saw the house, an imposing, elegant structure looming above her, and her breath quickened. The structure of the house, its lawn, its owner, seemed to flow so seamlessly together that Therese was almost afraid to disrupt its purity. But she _must_ act, she told herself, must act swiftly before the woman saw her through a window or something. And then – Therese nearly panicked – what was she to do after she rang the bell? She couldn’t _stay_ there, obviously, so she was left with two options: run back home or hide.

Running back home did not seem appealing in the slightest. It made her feel as though there was some ghastly monster to run from, some great, formidable fear hanging over her, influenced by the woman’s presence. Nor did she trust herself to run back fast enough that the woman would not see her if she opened the door right away.

No, Therese knew, her only option was to hide.

There was a clump of bushes, next to the stoop of the woman’s house, thick enough that one could hide behind them without being seen, vibrantly green and reasonably brambly. Therese’s body was petite; fitting behind them would be hardly any trouble. And if there were scratches – well, what were a few scratches compared to the consolation of being totally obscured, totally safe from the woman’s wrath, if it did surface?

Therese set the flower down on the stoop. Her hand moved towards the doorbell – then stopped. It was now or never, now or never. She could feel her breaths coming in shallow and short, she could feel her nervousness –

Therese slammed her hand on the doorbell, perhaps a bit too hard, then turned and fled behind the bushes. Crouching down, she felt like a Russian spy during the time of the war, peering through her neighbor’s bushes like a dirty peeping-tom or an undercover agent. Through the green brambles there was enough space that she could just discern the side of the stoop where the carnation was placed. Any time now…

Then the door opened, and Therese felt like she was falling. Looking at the woman was like looking into a very bright light, and Therese was immediately drawn to it, yet afraid of it. The woman seemed to have taken all the light in the world around her and condensed it into a single body, so much so that Therese, looking up at the sky, was surprised to find it not dark. She could see, through the bushes, a side view of the pale skin, slightly freckled, the glow that reflected off her cheekbone, the gorgeous soft golden hair, the pale brows that were frowning slightly with surprise as she picked up the flower. Therese saw her find the note taped to the stem and read it, carefully pulling it off with strong, slender fingers. Her nails were manicured in bright red, matching the carnation.

Then the woman turned her head, and Therese saw her full image for the first time. She inhaled, then covered her mouth self-consciously. She was like Venus de Milo, perhaps, or the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Now Therese could see the narrow, almond-shaped grey eyes perfectly, saw the fire in them, the look of shock that resided in them. Her nose was straight with a slight curve, her cheekbones were high, and her red lips were full and generous. Her brows arched around the bend of her forehead. She was looking around now with surprise, and her exact expression as she looked at the note was somewhat unfathomable; Therese looked hard and deduced it as something close to astonishment or nervousness, though whether she had guessed accurately, she was not sure.

The woman looked to the left, to the right, and Therese saw her glance in front of her, at Therese’s own house, and she hesitated, made a move as if to walk down her front steps, but turned at the last moment and went back inside. Therese let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

 _Had she liked it?_ Therese could not be sure, and she was afraid of the worst possible outcome – that the woman hadn’t liked it, and she did not consider it of great importance, or even any importance. Well, she supposed, this was the risk she took, copying her mysterious sender. Not everyone would enjoy receiving anonymous flowers with notes. And what about her sender? How had they known that Therese would like it?

Therese, mirroring the woman, glanced at her own house through the small clearing in the bushes. She could see its stoop and pathway clearly, and she hadn’t received a flower yet…

Suppose she lay in wait for the flower that would come today – if it did come. Therese was not certain whether two days in a row would lead to three, but there was a chance, wasn’t it? Perhaps she could finally see who was delivering the flowers, just as she had seen the woman’s reaction.

Therese shifted in the bushes – they were starting to prick at her arms, and she was uncomfortably itchy. If she stayed in the bushes, she might have to wait hours before the stranger arrived. It would be prudent to pick a more comfortable place to wait. Therese looked up at the house before her, trying again to gauge whether the woman was at the windows. She could see that nobody was at the window directly above her, but as for the other windows – Therese would simply have to take a risk.

She carefully edged out of the brambles and walked fast towards her own house, away from the woman, and reached the street, her heart rattling against her ribcage. If she was lucky, the woman hadn’t seen her through her windows. Now, there was only time to look for somewhere around her house to –

“Therese!” she heard a yell from afar. She turned towards it.

“Heya,” Dannie said, walking towards her with his hands in his pockets, looking pleased and a little surprised. His dark-brown eyes were merry, and his smile was broad. “I was just about to go see you, actually,” he said, “when you appeared right here on the street!”

Therese smiled. “I was just walking. It’s good to see you, Dannie.”

“Of course. Well, I haven’t seen you in ages. I was near the neighborhood,” he gestured vaguely at the houses, “and I thought I’d stop by.”

“Nice of you to come,” Therese said, glancing over at her house. Surely the sender would not deliver their flowers while she was outside, so close to seeing them. If they were here at this very moment, would they come back later?

“Want to come to Tops with me? I’ve got to tell you something.” Dannie’s eyes glinted. She looked at his easy smile, at the faint cleft that his chin bore. It would be hard to turn him down.

“Yes, sure,” she said, trying to swallow her disappointment. Another day, perhaps.

With one last glance at her doorway, she followed him to his car.

At Tops Diner, Dannie began to speak over a mouthful of meatloaf. “So, I just wanted to tell you – I scored better than I thought.”

“Did you? That’s great news.” She smiled again, genuinely delighted. “So, is the hard part over?”

Dannie smiled, too, almost apologetically. “Unfortunately not. I’ll be working on my dissertation next year, and things are going to get even busier. But for now, I’m pretty content.”

“Well, anyway – you’ve earned it.”

“Thanks.” Dannie stopped cutting his meatloaf and looked at her, poised with a silver knife in one hard and a fork in the other. “How are things with you – and your stage designing?”

“Oh, it’s not much of stage designing, actually,” her smile felt plastered on her face, and she tried to make it less rueful, “I’m only painting the sets and picking out colors. Sawing boards, too,” she added, as if that made her job seem more substantial.

“Well, it’s a start. I mean, you look at people like Milton Hershey, for example, or Walt Disney. They started out small, working for newspapers or in factories. They worked their way up, and it took time, of course, but it paid off. Even Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison. They failed hundreds of times. And you haven’t even failed.” Dannie smiled at her reassuringly.

“I suppose you’re right…” Therese knew what Dannie said made sense, and she knew she had been trying to tell herself that. It was different hearing it from someone else, but it made it more frightening, as though he could read her thoughts and know exactly what she’d been feeling. How terrifying it was, to be known, to have someone expose her deepest fears. But Dannie did not intend to expose, she knew; he was only seeking to assuage. She was grateful for Dannie’s encouragement, and she knew it was unrealistic to hope for a designing job right off the bat – she hadn’t even gotten her degree yet.

“I have been trying to network with the stage designer, though,” she said, hoping that her words would somehow signal success. And it was true – she had spent some time getting to know him, what he did – she’d even thrown him a couple of suggestions once about the set. It was easier to feel frustrated about a set when one did not plan it themselves, because there were always ways to make the set more personal, or lively, or thematic, or emotional – she felt that way sometimes about the vision that the designer had in mind. She was itching to create, and how different that was from the hopelessness and desolation that had choked her just a few days ago. She frowned. It seemed strange, all that had happened the past few days, the excitement of receiving flowers and the excitement of sending them, the mystery of the woman and the mystery of the sender.

“That’s great, Therese,” Dannie said, and she knew he meant it. “And don’t get too hung up on things – you know I thought all your sketches were very original. I think you’re very talented.”

Therese looked at his brown eyes that were smiling at her now, his gaze fixed on her, unmoving. Was it possible, after all?

With some hesitation, she began, “I’ve been drawing a bit more lately. Not design sketches but drawings of things.”

“Oh?” His tone was mildly curious. “What kind of things?”

She tried to find the words but could not think of a way to begin. Therese felt that she didn’t want to disclose everything just yet, everything that she felt for the woman, and all that followed. “Flowers – kind of.”

“Flowers?”

Therese scrutinized his face, trying to gauge its reaction. Was that recognition in his eyes? Was that a tremor in his hands – out of nervousness, perhaps, out of fear of being caught?

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, then plowed on recklessly, “Hydrangeas. And daffodils – maybe. I haven’t drawn them yet.”

“That’s nice. I didn’t know you had such an interest in flowers.”

He really seemed clueless, Therese realized. Unless he was an excellent actor, there was no tangible emotion in his face or actions that could incriminate him. She sipped her strawberry milkshake, her mind elsewhere.

“Show me them sometime,” Dannie said. “Your drawings, I mean.”

Therese smiled, knowing she would never show him the picture of the woman. She was sure now that he wasn’t the sender. But he was still Dannie, still a steady, reassuring force, still someone she could confide in – which was an immense step away from Richard. “Did you ever think –” she started, “did you ever just get so curious about someone, so much that you always thought of them or wanted to see them?”

Dannie looked at her, a little surprised. “Well, it depends on how you mean. I guess it’s inherently part of human nature to be curious, especially about others.”

“I mean…” Therese thought of the woman, of sending her the flower and waiting to see her reaction. Perhaps the sender felt the same way for her as she did for the woman. “I mean one person can make you react so much. Just one human being.”

Dannie frowned, putting his fork down. “Well, it’s how the world works, though, isn’t it? There are billions of people in the world, yet we’re so interested in certain ones specifically. Who knows how it works? Maybe the people we meet or see around us that we’re interested in are just the right ones for us.”

“Do you believe in soulmates then, for example?” Therese asked.

Dannie laughed a little. “I’m not sure I believe in soulmates, specifically, in the way that people usually use the word. How many people do you meet that connect with you – or make you feel something? Maybe a friend, or a lover, or family even. It doesn’t have to be romantic, not necessarily, and it doesn’t have to be fated, but I think that some people you just feel something for – and others you don’t. Maybe it was meant to be, when you meet someone, and maybe not, but the point is that you still feel something for them – or maybe you would feel that way even if you had never met them.”

“Yes,” Therese said, smiling, her eyes bright. She thought of the woman, of how she had or had not met her. Did seeing someone count as a meeting? Did interacting with them in some way – whether in writing or speech – count as a meeting? And did it really matter either way, because whether it counted or not, she was still interested in her. And whether it counted or not, the sender was probably still interested in Therese. How complicated it seemed, like a web, one link connecting the sender to Therese, then another link connecting the woman, too, for Therese knew, had it not been for the hydrangea she had received that one fated day, she would never have sent anything to the woman, never have worked up the courage to do so.  

Dannie was still observing her, his eyes roving over her face thoughtfully. “Why’d you ask?”

She could not bring it up immediately, not now. “Nothing,” she said, with what she hoped was a dismissive smile. “I was just curious.”

She was still thinking over their conversation when Dannie dropped her off at the end of her street. The sky was dark now, inky black, with the faint glitter of stars dimmed by the glow of the streetlight. The light spread through the streets, illuminating pavements, fences, and doorways; the rest of the neighborhood was dressed in darkness, which hung over the rooftops like shadowy vines. The world was silent; the stillness made her feel like she was simply a background character in a book, with no control over the plot, no control over the story. It was as though everything was simply removed from existence, and there was a vacuum where the world and everything that made one human had been sucked out. The street was bare, like a blank setting, or a set that had not yet been designed. Then something moved, and the spell was broken; something moved, and it was Earth again; something moved, a lone, dark shadow ahead of her, a figure that bent down at a doorstep, then straightened up again, and Therese’s heart was suddenly hammering against her ribs, a drumbeat so frantic that it shocked her into stillness for a moment. The figure made a movement down the street, off the doorstep, and Therese’s body came to life again, became abruptly mobile, as if there was a switch that had been triggered by the figure’s motion.

“Wait!” Therese called, and her voice sounded strangely high-pitched and desperate to her own ears, and her feet were moving on their own, thumping against the pavement in long, swift strides.

The figure did not stop, did not respond to Therese’s call, but increased its pace, its steps hurried as it moved down the street. Therese raced after it, catching in the light an instantaneous glimpse of a woven boater hat covering its head and long billowing pants that flowed. Then the figure hastened ahead out of the streetlight, and it was once again swathed in darkness. Therese could catch up to it, she felt sure, but then it ducked behind a house on the right side towards the end of the street, and she lost view of it. Therese sprinted towards the street’s end, turning the corner into the next row of houses.

There was no one there. Therese looked around frantically for a sign of the figure, but the next street was stiflingly, impossibly still. She walked fast, searching the spaces in between each house, but there was nothing. It was as though the figure had simply vanished into thin air.

Then there was a sudden flash, a sudden movement on the far left, just visible in the corner of her eye.

She turned her head, looking in its direction, towards the empty lot where no house had been built. Long, bushy grass grew, greenish and unkempt. There were a few lofty trees with sweeping, desolate branches and leaves hanging below like gloomy, twisted vines. Darkness seeped through the lot, darkness that was somehow blacker than the night. The night here was different than the night of the neighborhood. The sky above the houses was sprinkled with stars, dark blue; the sky above the lot was murky, cast in shadows. There were no streetlamps there.

Therese walked unsteadily towards the lot, the back of her neck prickling. Suppose she was wrong about whoever was gifting her…? It was a terrible idea, wasn’t it, to run amok the streets at night, to play detective…

She had reached the trees.

“Hello?” Perhaps they would answer, perhaps they would laugh and reveal themselves, and it would be a friend, or some coworker, and they would giggle together in recognition and relief…

She walked into the lot, the prickly grass crunching under her feet.

Then, three trees ahead, a figure moved, a pale hand glimmered, and once again, Therese saw in an instant the same beige boater hat, the same pants; then the figure turned, moving past the trees, and Therese followed, speeding up –

Her foot hit something hard in the grass, something glinting, and Therese’s leg slipped, came down hard, and she gasped, crying out. The grass strained under her fingers; she grasped at it weakly, wincing. It was hard to move, lying on the ground, but Therese forced herself up, feeling rather sore, and groped blindly in the grass for whatever incorrigible item it was that tripped her.

Her hand found cool metal, and she closed her fingers around the object, picking it up, holding it in the direction of the sky, bathing it in moonlight.

It was a ring, a ring with a clear green sapphire, and Therese examined it, turning it over. The gemstone shined; the ring looked shiny and well-kept, free from grime. Therese traced the band slowly, the silvery ring that had one encircled someone’s finger.

 _Who could have dropped it?_ Was it the figure’s – was it possible that it slipped off, forgotten, from her sender’s finger? Surely very few people traipsed around this lot at night… Therese felt bizarrely fatigued; her body, once thrumming with adrenaline, now seemed to have exhausted its supply. Her heart was still pounding, but her body did not respond.

She looked in the direction that the figure had gone. There was nobody there; the moon shined on the trees, framing their dark leafy outlines, and the street lay ahead, glittering with lamps – but the absence of the figure, of any movement, was palpable; she may as well have imagined the whole encounter.

Therese did not look for the figure any longer. She picked herself up, still clutching the sapphire ring, and walked away from the lot, into the light cast by the streetlamps, into familiarity, safety, and security, into the comfort of her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that Therese's profession right now would be a scene shop assistant, since she's young and hasn't had much experience or significant higher education. I wanted her to do something in the theatre department without making it seem like she rose up the ranks too much. In a scene shop, movie props and setting elements are designed, so the scene shop supervisor works with his assistant (Therese) and the set designer to craft the set of the play.
> 
> Well, I hope you liked it, and please tell me what you think below! Thank you!


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